Particularize Books To Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Original Title: | Typee |
ISBN: | 0140434887 (ISBN13: 9780140434880) |
Edition Language: | English |
Herman Melville
Paperback | Pages: 368 pages Rating: 3.56 | 4891 Users | 398 Reviews
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Itemize Appertaining To Books Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Title | : | Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life |
Author | : | Herman Melville |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 368 pages |
Published | : | 1996 by Penguin Classics (first published 1846) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Travel. Literature. Adventure. American |
Explanation Supposing Books Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Typee is a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Rating Appertaining To Books Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Ratings: 3.56 From 4891 Users | 398 ReviewsAppraise Appertaining To Books Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Listened to this recently in audio version from LibriVox (www.librivox.org). A vividly told and well-observed first-person account of Melville's time among a preindustrial South Sea islander society that had minimal contact with the West. Part polemic, part adventure story, part amateur ethnography. The book that made Melville famous, before he blew his reputation on "Moby Dick." I was disappointed to learn later that much of it was made up.Moby Dick is my favorite book of all time, and it's not even close. I figured if Typee was half as good, I'd have another book to love. It isn't half as good. It contains a lot of the dryness and descriptions of Moby Dick with none of the passion and deeper meaning. My rating is probably too low for what it is, which is a semi-autobiographical journey log, but for what I wanted, it did not deliver. Many of the chapters, Melville just breaks down the culture of the Typee people, and while I
If hoping for swash and rollick - look elsewhere. Vitriol for missionaries and the Hawaiian Islands? Aplenty. Coming from the Jack London/Joseph Conrad/R.L.Stevenson fan club this seemed lacklustre - and what's with this partly-true, partly made-up business?? If he was marooned on a cannibal island, why not just tell that as it happened? Not exciting enough, fine, but make the *fiction* story exciting then, for Pete's sake!! (I've always avoided "Moby Dick", and feel quite justified after this.)
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A terrific adventure story (based on a real-life experience) interspersed with commentary about the daily life and habits of the people of the Typee Valley in the Marquesas Islands. There are lengthy descriptions of food and cooking methods, housing, clothing, personal hygiene and grooming, rituals, sleeping habits, language, relationships. It might be considered a bit pedantic at times, but I listened in small daily doses for several weeks and found it exciting, educational, and amusing.
I went into this not really knowing much about Melville (other than having read Moby Dick a few years ago) and really enjoyed it. Melville obviously spent quite a bit of time on the ocean and with the Typee's and his descriptions of them are fascinating. My favorite parts though were his descriptions of simple things where he plays with language - you can really tell he just loves words, for example this passage describing the flies he encountered:"He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and
Living Among CannibalsMelville was surely able to count on abhorrence-fuelled fascination with the topic of cannibalism when he published his first work Typee in 1846, all the more so as he cleverly created the impression of its being based on the experiences he had when he lived among the natives of the South Pacific island of Nuku Hiva in 1842. This may partly be true, but there hardly remains any doubt that Melville also used his own imagination as well as other peoples travel reports when
It ain't no Moby Dick but it does feature cannibalism and polyandry, two of the greatest things ever conceived of by mankind.Melville's first novel is his barely fictionalized account of his escape from a shitty employer on a whaling ship and how he ended up living amongst the Typee in the Marquesas Islands around the time the French took control. Like Dick, Typee has a lot of sections of fact which round out the narrative part of the story and which feed off of the narrator's desires and fears.
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